The camellias are making an absolutely ridiculous show above the primroses. I was beside myself when I found that these and the tea trees and the magnolia would all be in top form for Tom's visit--I don't think the garden has ever been quite so cooperative. Despite the rain, everything still looks fabulous, except that that dash of hail finally destroyed the one rose blossom that had hung on for 20 days. I like the way the brilliant colors stand out against the grayness of SpringWinter.

Of all the miraculous things! The feijoah ("Pineapple Guava Tree") is sending out buds! I didn't expect it to bloom this year. It's really just a 10-foot stick with a few branches in a 22-gallon tub. But it's only lost a few silvery leaves and now it will bloom! I'm considering letting it make fruit, as I know I won't have the heart to eat the adorable red-and-white bow-shaped flowers. But I know some other little creatures who would! If those rats climb that tree and eat the flowers I'm going to make rat pie.

The wisteria has finally reawakened, and it looks like there are 3 fat flower buds on the naked branches. Since it's in a pot and I cut it back hard last fall, it probably won't bloom much more than that this year. It's turning into a nice little deciduous patio tree.

The boronia's buds positively smother the branches and they've begun to show a deep magenta. The flowers are supposed to be fragrant; in the meantime the leaves are extremely pungent.

After making a poor display last year and getting kicked off the porch onto the pool deck for the summer, the pittosporum has several hundred buds! This is a great boon for me. It will bloom just in time to replace the magnolia's fruity fragrance and the delicate scent of the camellias. It's a bit late in comparison with the pittosporums around the neighborhood, but I'm glad because I've been congested with a lingering head cold for the past three weeks, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss it.

The pink jasmine is still going full-steam. My outdoor office chair is placed so that it sits behind me and the perpetual breeze pushes the sweet perfume all around my desk.

The dwarf pomogranite that I bought last year in a one-inch pot and transferred conservatively to a one-gallon, is now 8 inches tall has 10 stems and a big fat orange flower bud on each. I don't know how it's going to hold itself up when those buds open, but I don't think it will be possible to let such a tiny plant keep its fruit.

All the camellias, azaleas, and cyclamens are in full bloom with plenty of buds still to open. The alyssum took a month off and is once again filling the air with the scent of warm honey. The fuchsia, also just coming back from a short break during which it carried no more than 3 flowers at a time is growing wildly and putting out buds again.

The red and white tea trees are just winding down after a spectacular winter. They should finish up just about the time the first of the cistus blossoms--which are 3 or 4 to a stalk this year--start popping.

I'd have to give the prize for tenacity to the pink kalanchoe, the primroses, and the San Diego Red bougainvillea this year. They've all been in bloom persistently for the past five months and show no signs of slowing down.

I don't know if my treasured stephanotis is going to make it. It doesn't seem to be recovering from having its bark chewed.

I am surprised and overwhelmed by the penetrating fragrance of the boronia. There are other flowers mixing with it right now; but I was shocked when the first single 1/4-inch flower opened and the scent from that tiny pink object wafted off the patio and filled the house. It's quite as strong as nightblooming jasmine (cestrum), but without the tendency to suffocate. When I got the tiny boronia (6 inches tall) a year and a half ago, its four small flowers seemed like they might have a little sweet fragrance, but I couldn't say for sure. Now I realize that the plant was just tired and downtrodden at the time. With combined chemical fog spewing out of the wisteria, pink jasmine, and alyssum, unwary neighbors don't have a chance. Traffic jams form in the parking lot as people are arrested by the cloud eminating from the patio. They comment loudly; if I'm in my outdoor office, they stop to chat, each offering their theories as to what plant it might be, though none of them have ever heard of a boronia before and prefer to insist that it is coming from something that I don't own. I think I've met more of my neighbors since the boronia opened than I've met in the entire four years I've lived here.

Others? Too many to describe. I simply list for the purposes of my garden almanac: